Discover the origins, how it differs and how it continues to change.
Image: Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds

Welcome to the Yorkshire Dialect Society

Established in 1897, the Yorkshire Dialect Society is Britain’s oldest surviving dialect society. It grew out of a committee formed nearly three years earlier by Professor Joseph Wright, which was set up to collect additional Yorkshire material for the English Dialect Dictionary.

Our main aim has always been to encourage the study and recording of dialect. Our equal interest is in speech and literature and members like to hear dialect spoken and to see it written in our dialect writing section.

Our membership is worldwide, and is not confined to those who were born and bred in the county.

We hope that after browsing through what we have to offer on this website, you will wish to join us in celebrating the richness of dialects in the county and enjoying these traditional ways of speaking and writing the living language of Yorkshire.